Pedestrian and Transit Oriented Design Course

Pedestrian and Transit Oriented Design Course

NITC Final Report

Prepared by Shima Hamidi and Philip Stoker

Letter of Transmittal

Dear NITC,

We greatly appreciated the opportunity to prepare, develop, and offer this course, Pedestrian and Transit Oriented Design. The course was a success, and our students travelled to six cities across the U.S. to measure and assess TOD best practices and the state of the art practice. The course was informative, challenging, and educational. We hope we speak for the students as well. The support from NITC made this course possible, and we are transmitting this report as the conclusion of this project.

This report includes background information on the course, and how we structured this course. A separate file transmittal includes all course materials, including lectures, readings, and materials that we used for this course. The hope is that this initial offering sets the foundation for future course offerings, at the University of Utah and in other universities across the nation.

In this report, we have also included each of the student authored reports on TOD in six cities: Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, San Diego, and Washington D.C. The students followed a basic outline for each section, however their insights are unique and their own.

Should you have any questions or clarifications, we are happy to discuss at your convenience.

Sincerely,

Shima Hamidi

Assistant Professor, University of Texas Arlington

Philip Stoker

Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Arizona

Executive Summary

Much has changed recently in how communities are designed. New urbanism has flourished, transit-oriented development has become commonplace, and smart growth has gone national. All three movements emphasize pedestrian- and transit-oriented design. The travel literature has expanded to include literally hundreds of studies showing that the built environment, as measured by D variables (density, diversity, and design) affect people’s decisions to walk and use transit. Concerns over Americans’ physical inactivity, obesity, and related chronic diseases have led to the active living movement and a rich literature demonstrating how important the built environment is as an influence on physical activity and weight status. Climate change has re-emerged as a national concern, creating another imperative for reduced automobile dependence.

We proposed a graduate level multi-disciplinary course that addressed these concerns by focusing on the nexus between research and practice. The course was co-taught by Professor Reid Ewing, Hal Johnson of the Utah Transit Authority, and two planning doctoral students, Shima Hamidi and Philip Stoker. Students in the new course were introduced to the theoretical basis and design principles of compact urban development reviewed local, national and international Transit Oriented Development’s (TOD) for the urban design qualities that make a place walkable and encourage multi-modal transportation. Most importantly, students in the course travelled to six different metropolitan areas evaluate how well TOD was being implemented. Students travelled to Atlanta, Washington D.C., Denver, San Diego, Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles. Once in the cities, students collected data relating to pedestrian activities, urban design qualities, and interview data with local TOD planners. Each case study was analyzed in the “lab” using GIS and demographic data, built environment metrics, and ridership/travel data. The metropolitan areas will be selected on the basis of available household travel data and land use databases.

The intention is to increase students’ understanding of the dynamics of TOD development by bolstering qualitative data from site visits with quantitative data from the “lab.” This research allowed us to make comparisons of TOD’s, as well as make recommendations for TODs related to public health, safety, air quality, economics, and overall livability. The capstone of the course was an oral presentation by students and a compiled report based on the TOD case studies. The results of their work are presented in this report.

Background

The term transit-oriented development (TOD) can refer to buildings or clusters of buildings near transit that are high-density and mixed-use, with walk-accessible shopping, pedestrian amenities, lower parking supply, and physical designs that are thought to encourage households to walk, bicycle, and take transit instead of driving (e.g., Belzer & Autler, 2002).

TOD can deliver a range of benefits, from reduced household driving to improved community walkability and lowered regional greenhouse gases. The travel literature has expanded to include literally hundreds of studies showing that the built environment, as measured by D variables (density, diversity, and design) affect people’s decisions to walk and use transit (Ewing and Cervero 2010).However, it can be a challenging development model to implement. Some barriers to accomplishing quality TOD include high land costs near transit, complexity of building mixed-use projects and lack of adequate infrastructure (Cervero, 2004, Anderson & Forbes, 2010).

With demographic and lifestyle changes, the consumer demand for compact, walkable, transit-served places has never been greater. The shifts are already apparent in real estate prices, with consumer demand for pedestrian-oriented communities leading to significant price premiums (Ewing & Bartholomew, 2013). Over the past decade, TOD has gained in popularity as a planning tool to promote smart growth to address changing demands. While there have been many claims for the various benefits of TOD, few studies have attempted to measure its success and to provide a how-to guide to design an effective TOD project(Renne & Wells, 2005). This course attempts to operationalize a half-century of theories about urban design principles in ways that are meaningful and useful to planning and engineering students.

The course utilized a textbook for the theory portion of the class. In 2013, the Urban Land Institute and American Planning Associate co-published a book by Professors Ewing and Bartholomew entitled Pedestrian- and Transit-Oriented Design. With 28 features described and illustrated with hundreds of photos and dozens of code examples, the book is a how-to manual for creating great places. As students visit exemplary TODs from across the United States, they referred back to the text book to guide data collection.

Course Overview

This course introduced the theoretical basis and design principles of compact urban development and reviewed local, national and international TOD’s for the urban design qualities that make a place walkable and encourage multi-modal transportation. From this review, specific TOD locations were identified and targeted for more comprehensive on-site investigations. Students in the course were sent out to different metropolitan areas with exemplary TODs to conduct interviews, collect additional data, and make a photographic record of each project. The case study TODs were analyzed in the “lab” using GIS and demographic data, built environment metrics, and ridership/travel data. The metropolitan areas were selected in part on the basis of available household travel data and land use databases. This course provided a how-to manual for creating great places that are walkable and transit oriented. It used both qualitative and quantitative research methods to provide a mix of the subjective and objective aspects of urban design and its role in creating walkable places, a key goal of smart growth. General methodology for this research includes the following components in sequence:

Objective 1) Principles of good Pedestrian and Transportation Oriented Design:

This course began with a review of evidence showing that Americans value walkability. It followed with a discussion of the concepts espoused by the “founding fathers (and mothers)” of the urban design field, such giants as Gordon Cullen, Kevin Lynch, Jan Gehl, and Jane Jacobs. Then it followed with descriptions of the urban design qualities that make a place walkable. The literature provided dozens of progressive local examples from around the United States. Finally, we reviewed empirical research on travel behavior, visual preference, real estate economics, and traffic safety as relates to compact, mixed use development.

Objective 2) Quantitative Investigation and case study selection:

Students worked with several databases including household travel surveys and the CTOD database to identify promising TODs for case study investigation. The students used CTOD’s existing database of 4,400 transit stations to conduct original analyses of transit mode shares within station areas.Students learned and work with not only linear regression analysis but geospatial processing, to identify stations and measure characteristics of the land uses around the stations remotely.

Objective 3) Case Study Research: Students were paired and given budgets to travel and stay in cities that had good examples of TOD. The students travelled and gathered data around three stations in each city. The data collection was both quantitative and qualitative. Where pedestrian counts and urban design qualities were measured along randomly selected street segments. The students arranged interviews with local TOD planners, and conducted the interviews to learn about the process of TOD for their selected stations.

Objective 4) Design and Policy Synthesis:

Through the synthesis of collected data and analysis results, students identifiedgood TOD principles, policies and approaches that are most promising in the design and implementation of transit-oriented development projects. The students’ proposals will be presented and analyzed for viability by faculty and NITC partners. The student’s results are summarized in the following sections.

Methods

This course utilized a mixed-methodology to gather information on TODs. Students were trained in the methodologies prior to their site visits. As a class, we employed the following methodologies:

• Interviews: Students conducted interviews with professional planners in their study regions. Planners were identified based off of job titles and contacted prior to the student’s travel. The students conducted the interviews in person and utilized a semi-structured interview approach. Students took detailed notes during the interview, and following the interview wrote the notes into cohesive passages. These passages were then returned by e-mail to the interviewees in order for the interviewee to review the accuracy of the notes.

• Urban Design Audits: We employed an established and validated urban design instrument to quantify the characteristics of urban design adjacent to TOD stations. Students randomly selected 10 street segments within ½ mile of the selected stations to audit. Once in the field, students walked up and down the street segments recording urban design qualities. In addition, the students counted the pedestrians on each street segment as a measure of walkability. These audits provided measures of imageability, enclosure, human scale, transparency, and complexity. See Appendix A for a copy of the audit.

• Questionnaires: The instructors developed a questionnaire to administer at the selected TOD stations to capture the views, opinions, and preferences of passengers. The questionnaire was tested on a sample population in Salt Lake City prior to student field visits. In the field, the students worked in pairs to administer the survey to passengers waiting at the stations. All persons over the age 18 who were near the station terminal were asked to participate. The survey instrument is included in Appendix A.

• Quantitative measurement of D variables: Prior to field visits, students calculated D variables, i.e. Density, Design, and Diversity for ½ mile around their selected TOD stations. These measures were derived using an accepted methodology and are presented in each of city sections. Data was gathered from publically available sources such as the U.S. census as well as proprietary databases on road network density.

• Qualitative observations: The students were encouraged to make qualitative observations as they visited the different field sites. We encouraged students to make observations about the land use around stations, station characteristics, as well as what stores and people were within ½ mile of the selected stations. Students also took photographs to supplement their qualitative observations. These observations were used to inform each of the student chapters.

TOD’s across the U.S.

The following sections of this report are the student written sections about their TOD site visits and the information that they gathered. The student authors are listed in each section. The organization of each section is as follows:

1. Introduction. This section was informed by literature searches, online searches, and first-hand experience while visiting the city. Students chose to include different facts about the city as they relate to the transit operators and systems.
2. Station Descriptions. For each city, student’s selected three stations that exhibited characteristics of TOD. This section details how they selected the station, as well as what they found in each station. Interview data, urban design audits, and questionnaire data is summarized in this section. For every station, a summary table is provided that provides built environmental characteristics and urban design qualities.
3. Themes. Student’s identified themes related to TOD in all three stations. Students were encouraged to think critically and identify lessons that may apply across all three stations, and potentially in other stations around the country.

We proceed alphabetically through the cities: Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, San Diego, and Washington D.C.

Atlanta

Ashley Cleveland and Ashley Scarff

Atlanta, the sweet spot for peaches, is now becoming a delicious spot for Transit Oriented Development (TOD). With a new General Manager and Senior Director of TOD at the helm, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) is now prioritizing its TOD program as a way to generate revenues for the historically struggling agency.

MARTA’s system, which consists of buses, heavy rail, and a brand new downtown streetcar loop, was originally planned as a five-county network, but has historically served only two counties. The agency does not receive any direct funding from the state of Georgia, relying on sales tax revenues from local service agreements for operating funds—this affects MARTA’s ability to expand due to financial and geographical constraints, and makes the authority’s fiscal stability extremely vulnerable to economic swings. For example, the recent recession led to the elimination of a third of MARTA’s bus routes, an increase in wait times, a 40 percent fare increase, and a drop in ridership by 1/6. When a new General Manager stepped in in 2012, auditors told him that MARTA would be bankrupt within 4-5 years if its situation did not improve (Vock, 2014).

Luckily, MARTA’s fortunes did improve. The summer of 2014 saw the agency’s first expansion in 40 years, when Clayton County residents approved a one cent sales tax increase to join the MARTA service area (Burns, 2015). Information Technology work was brought in-house, the bus fleet was converted to natural gas, Wall Street credit rating agencies upgraded MARTA’s rating, and the new General Manager finished his first year with a $9 million surplus. As for transit service, wait times were reigned in to 10 minutes between trains (during peak hours), and while a drop in ridership was seen, it was much smaller than ridership reductions in the past (Vock, 2014).

Now that MARTA leadership has shown that they can save money, they’re looking to ways that they can make money. The agency has initiated planning for TOD on its excess land at existing heavy rail stations, which it will lease to developers, rather than sell (Vock, 2014). This will make MARTA a stakeholder in Atlanta’s real estate world, innovate the standard transportation planning culture of the region, and generate much needed revenues that will allow for further service expansion. Published renderings of development at Atlanta’s King Memorial, Edgewood-Candler Park, and Avondale stations include plans for affordable, market-rate & senior housing, commercial space, public gathering spaces, pedestrian friendly streetscapes, and more. As of March 2015, MARTA is set to meet its goal of making significant TOD progress at five transit stations throughout the city by mid-2015 (Burns, 2015).

The Stations

In an effort to select three optimal transit stations for TOD research, all of Atlanta’s transit stops were analyzed based on the socio-demographic, transportation, and built environmental characteristics of the half mile buffer areas surrounding them. The D variables, namely density, diversity, design, and destination accessibility, played a major role in this analysis. Ultimately, Peachtree Center, Edgewood-Candler Park, and Avondale heavy rail stations were chosen for their high levels of entropy (diversified employment in the surrounding area) and varied geographic locations throughout the city (urban v. suburban). Upon consultation with MARTA’s Senior Director of TOD, it was found that two of these sites are being actively pursued for TOD, making them great candidates for our analysis.